


i seem to walk in circles

by dearhappy



Category: Simonverse | Creekwood Series - Becky Albertalli
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, like you know those flashback scenes in loto?? yeah, technically pre-canon???, those make an appearance here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 11:53:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearhappy/pseuds/dearhappy
Summary: On Leah’s Birthday she finds herself typing out: so that secret is that i kinda rlly want to kiss u, hope thats not weird!! happy birthday!!She deletes it before retyping multiple things along the same lines over and over and over again. Until she realizes she's being stupid, it's not worth making things weird between them. Instead, she settles on keeping the secret to herself, and just sends her a simple text that reads: happy birthday!! and leaves it at that.





	i seem to walk in circles

**Author's Note:**

> hey there, it's me back with some bursuso content 
> 
> here's some background that nobody cares about: this has been in my docs for several months now. originally i was going to do a thing on "abby suso's journey to self-discovery" which this was part of but i never got around to adding more to it and instead of letting it continue to sit untouched i decided to post it because why not? especially since i realized that this can stand on its own as a small exploration of abby's crush on leah, so here we are.
> 
> anyways, enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> TITLE: RAINBOW BY DODIE  
> "I was brought up in a line / But I seem to walk in circles"

 

 

The summer before her junior year, Abby Suso and her mother move to a small town in Georgia. She hides how nervous she is about starting fresh at a new school in a town where it’s likely most people have known each other for years. It’s totally fine, she tells herself.

 

Simon Spier is the first person she becomes friends with, thanks to alphabetical order which ends up causing them to sit next to each other in several of their shared classes, they instantly click once they strike up a conversation. And the fact that Abby plans to join the drama club which Simon has been a part of since freshman year doesn’t hurt.

 

By lunchtime he invites her to sit at with him and his friends.

 

And while Simon may be her first friend, the first person she becomes _best_ friends with is Leah Burke.

 

Leah Burke is so intimidatingly cool that it makes Abby want to impress her so badly. She is just intimidating in general with her black combat boots and snark and epic side eye. But it doesn’t take Abby long to get past that intimidating outer shell and she finds Leah just that much more amazing.

 

And it doesn’t matter that she talks about music and shows that Abby’s never heard of before, she enjoys hearing about it from her. She finds that it’s just so easy to talk to her about anything and everything like her old school and friends that she left behind. Leah listens to her talk about it all, even encourages her to continue when Abby feels like she’s rambling too much and starts apologizing.

 

Leah’s also funny in the kind of clever way that not many people can get away with but it works for Leah. And she even has this small almost rare smile that makes Abby feel breathless each time she’s the one who earns it.

 

It doesn’t take her long to learn that there’s very few people who can make Leah genuinely laugh, which is a shame because her laugh is possibly the cutest thing, and it makes Abby beam with pride every time she gets the chance to make Leah laugh at her jokes.

 

So whenever she says a joke, she instantly finds herself looking towards Leah for her reaction.

 

And the thing is she wants to spend as much time with Leah as possible which she does, they end up spending so much time together. And it’s nice, this friendship that they’re starting to build, she wonders how she got so lucky to get the chance to be able to be friends with Leah.

  


*

  


They’re laying side by side on the floor of Morgan’s room, they’re the only two awake and the only light in the room comes from the glow of Leah’s phone and the streetlamps outside. They try to keep quiet as they scroll through the fanfictions giggling as they read and try to figure out which one is written by Simon.

 

It’s after she leans over to press the back arrow on Leah’s phone screen that she realizes that they’re so close. And Abby tries to ignore the way her heart's banging against her ribs, like her veins are on fire at how close they are now. But she doesn’t pull away, instead lets herself shift even closer until they’re basically pressed against each other now, because this is as much as she can have.

 

She also ignores the part of her that thinks about how close they are, about how she could turn her head just the slightest and lean in for a kiss. She pushes those thoughts down as she makes a bad joke about the fanfiction they’re looking through, praying that Leah doesn’t see right through her.

 

A part of her feels guilty as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have as she tries very hard not to think about what it might be like to kiss Leah Burke.

 

 

*

  


Leah’s Birthday is coming up, it’s been over a week since that night at Morgan’s and every once in awhile her mind clearly supplies the moment where she had to quickly pushed away urge to kiss Leah. She keeps on as if the thoughts aren’t happening.

 

She reminds herself like a mantra, that it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just… curiosity from spending so much time with Leah. That’s all it is, it means nothing.

 

(She briefly wonders if it does mean nothing after all, wonders if maybe this could be a crush. But she brushes those thoughts aside, because it _has_ to mean nothing. Leah doesn’t like her in that way, if it did maybe mean something.

 

But it _doesn’t_ , so that train of thought doesn’t matter.)

 

And then, Leah’s waiting with her for the bus like they’ve started doing for weeks, it’s strange how she hadn’t even noticed that it’s a _thing_ now. She really doesn’t mind it, in fact it’s nice not to have to wait alone for the bus.

 

But as she joins Leah, she notices that Leah looks, well nervous. Something that she started noticing about Leah is that she tries very hard to hide how nervous she is. Which seems insane because Leah is by far the coolest person she’s ever known.

 

Leah says, “I want to show you something but…” She’s fiddling with her phone, “Don’t laugh.”

 

Which makes the laugh practically bubble out of her as she tries to stifle it. She shakes her head, apologizes as she looks at Leah expectantly. There’s a moment of hesitation before she hands the phone over and immediately avoids eye contact.

 

Abby looks at the screen to see that it’s a drawing of the two of them.

 

That moment of laying side by side, so close they’re touching. It’s a beautiful drawing because of course it is, of course, Leah is a talented artist, it only makes sense. She feels all choked up all of sudden as she looks at it, her heart pounding in her chest as she looks over at Leah.

 

“I love it so much, Leah,” she says, her voice catching in her throat turning to look at Leah, “Seriously, I’m going to cry.”

 

And she idly thinks of her fleeting thoughts, of wanting to kiss Leah. Briefly wondering if just maybe Leah would kiss her back.

 

“Can I tell you a secret,” she blurts out, and Leah nods.

 

She opens her mouth, to tell her, feels her heart pounding. And a gut wrenching feeling, that feels like guilt, she doesn’t know what else to call it. It’s just she’s not sure what the hell she’s thinking, she’s straight and isn’t sure if this is just some dumb moment of curiosity.

 

Things with Leah are just so damn confusing.

 

Then she worries about ruining this friendship that they’ve built over the past couple weeks about how she refuses to ruin it because of something so fleeting, that she’s not fully sure of. She has no idea how Leah will react and she doesn’t think the risk is enough.

 

So, she says, “I have to go. I’ll tell you another time.”

 

And leaves it at that.

  


*

  


(On Leah’s Birthday she finds herself typing out:  _so that secret is that i kinda rlly want to kiss u, hope thats not weird! happy birthday!!_

 

She deletes it before retyping multiple things along the same lines over and over and over again. Until she realizes she's being stupid, it's not worth making things weird between them. Instead, she settles on keeping the secret to herself, and just sends her a simple text that reads:  _happy birthday!!_ and leaves it at that.)

  
  


*

  


Somehow by the second week of October it’s like she and Leah were never best friends. She isn’t sure when the shift had started or why except that Leah started replying to her texts less and less, slowly stopped inviting her places, until the only times they hang out or speak are at lunch and with Simon and Nick always present.

 

And it’s a shock to Abby’s system because it feels like one second they were friends and now they’re barely even that and she has no idea where she went wrong.

 

She finds herself calling Molly and breaking down when she asks about Leah because she just doesn’t know what she did to make Leah upset enough to stop being friends with her. Things were just going so well, at least she thought so.

 

But no matter how much she talks about it to Molly, or how much she thinks it over she can’t pinpoint where things went wrong. How they went from being best friends to just barely being friends.

 

(She briefly fears that Leah saw right through her and knows that she has these confusing feelings towards her, that she somehow realized Abby wants to kiss her and freaked out. But she knows that can't be it, because there's no way it's that, nobody could know about all these thoughts she has about Leah.)

  
Sometimes, there's moments on good days where she thinks maybe they're heading back towards how they were before until it goes back into that weird grey area where she isn't quite sure where they stand. And sometimes she thinks Leah would rather be anywhere else instead of speaking to her. In those moments, she tries really hard to push down the feelings of hurt at that and pretends that Leah deciding to drop the conversation with a simple "nevermind" instead of explaining things doesn't bother her as much as it does. 

 

But the thing is it bothers her so much, much more than she's willing to admit. And she can't even pinpoint why, because this isn't the first time that a friendship has turned sour, but for some reason it just hurts that Leah's done a confusing one-eighty with their friendship. She thinks it has to do with the fact that she can't pinpoint what went wrong. 

 

It was like one day things suddenly changed without her so much as realizing that something was wrong. And whatever is wrong, Leah clearly won't tell her. And it's not like anyone else really pays attention to the shift as much as she does, so she tries to leave it.

 

Instead, she continues on as if things are fine. It’s just how she does things, smile and pretend it’s all okay. Go on as if nothing's wrong, and hopes that whatever it is, it'll work out and they'll get back to the friendship they used to have and things will be okay.

 

And if she continues to says things or tell jokes specifically to impress Leah, well it’s not like anybody else seems to notice that's what she's doing.

 

 

 


End file.
